Monday, April 15, 2013

Acacia Cemetery

Birders often end up birding in some awfully strange places. Sewage ponds and garbage dumps often become prime spots for finding and photographing things like shorebirds and gulls. A few years ago a pair of merlins was found nesting in a local cemetery. So now each spring people visiting love ones that have passed on are confused by the guy walking around the cemetery with a huge camera.

Merlins are fairly common in places in northern Minnesota like Duluth but here in the Twin Cities they are not very common. This may be due to the large population of Coopers Hawks that we have living in the cities. Merlins and Coopers hawks both prey on small birds. Both are agile flyers who chase their prey through trees and bushes. So far this year I have only spotted the male, top photo, who is more blue in color. I am hoping that the female is around also but we have not been having very much photo friendly weather lately so I have not been out as much. The second shot is a photo of the female eating a junco which I shot last spring.

Excellent photos, but I am glad our neighborhood Merlins have stopped using our big trees as their dining room. It's been years now, but I'll never forget the shock of finding my deck covered in the wings and legs of songbirds.K